State of PC Gaming in 2004 Probed

NetDanzr writes "Netjak.com has published another of its annual articles probing the state of PC gaming last year. The author complains about the demise of strategy and role-playing gaming, at the expense of action titles. Even though he praises Valve's Half-Life 2, he is skeptical about the Steam copy restrictions, and predicts that Valve would face legal challenges because of it in 2005. Slashdot reported on the previous article in the series last year."

Comments

XBoX

[Apreche]

The XBoX killed PC gaming. It was the dumbest thing Microsoft ever did. Two years ago I was a windows users because I had to play all my games. But now, PC gaming is dead, except for Steam. All the games that used to be on PC are now on XBoX. So now I run Linux. PC gaming has gone down the crapper.

Re:XBoX

[l1nuxpunk]

Wait? Dead?

Hmm... let's go through a very short list. Half-Life 2, City Of Heroes and World Of Warcraft.

Doesn't seem dead to me.

Re:XBoX

[Beatbyte]

tell that to nVidia and ATI.. they seem to keep making these massively fast video cards that sell like hotcakes. i

but i'm sure it's just because they do great 2d rendering.

Re:XBoX

[zoobaby]

XBox did not kill PC Gaming and it will not. It has cut into with people 'switching.' However, there will also be those people that want the most powerful machines for their games. A PC is ideal for this.

Re:XBoX

[Darth_Burrito]

Assuming that xbox sales really do hurt microsoft's os and applications market, then we might be talking about a disruptive technology. In that case, Microsoft has a couple of choices. They can try to bring it to market and potentially canibalize their own business or they can wait until someone else brings it to market.

If they bring it to market themselves, they may be cannibalizing their own OS/applications business but the money still goes into their pockets. On the other hand, very few big businesses are successful at bringing products to market that are disruptive with respect to their existing products. If it truly was disruptive to their OS/apps market, it would be a marvel of business ingenuity for them to have successfully brought the xbox to market.

As things are, I really don't think the xbox puts a dent, ding, scuff, or scratch in os/app sales. For starters, most of the cash probably comes from businesses. Second, the percentage of people who are sticking with Windows solely for games has got to be extraordinarily small.

When I look at the xbox, all I see is expansion into additional markets and, longer term, creation of entirely new markets for their existing os/app products. I mean, the thing runs a stripped down version of windows. They may be losing money now, but that won't last forever.

Re:XBoX

[snuf23]

I have an Xbox. I have a PC. Let's look at the games I've played over 2004:

Rise of Nations
City of Heroes
Rome: Total War
Half Life 2
Doom 3
Pirates!
Battlefield Vietnam
Battle for Middle Earth

Hmmm. These seem to be PC games. And what have I been playing on the Xox?

Robotron. Original. Emulated. Can't beat having two joysticks to play it the way it was meant to play!

Re:XBoX

[fistfullast33l]

The XBox did not necessarily kill PC Gaming. Instead, the Xbox pulled together two markets. First, it grabbed all of the normal console people who can't even spell PC let alone try and run a game on one. Second, it grabbed all those PC fanboys who thought it was cool that the XBox was basically a PC with a special BIOS/OS.

What I see Microsoft doing instead is combining the two platforms. I remember reading in PC Gamer not too long ago that Microsoft was attempting to develop a platform on the PC that operated just like consoles - instead of installing a game, it could just run off of the discs. This is a brilliant idea when you think about it. If they can write a wrapper and sell it (or even just let it be free), then people can buy Xbox games that run on PC and the Xbox. This way, if you don't have $2000 for a decent PC, you can still buy an XBox. On the other hand, you can use the PC's advanced Graphics chips and easily upgradeable hardware (how many people have installed an ATI X800 in their Xbox lately?) to play the newest games as they were meant to be. The term "console port" would quickly become obsolete.

Of course, if Microsoft were smart, they'd develop features that could only work on the Xbox so that people don't just buy a new PC and play all the XBox games on that alone.

Don't rule it out...Microsoft has already said they're attempting to allow PC gamers to play on XBox live.

Microsoft dumb like a fox

[AtariAmarok]

"It was the dumbest thing Microsoft ever did"

How is this dumb? Let's see:

Without Xbox, they sell someone one single OS for a computer that plays games and does Office/etc

With Xbox, they still sell the OS installation for Office. However, they are now selling another OS...hell, they are even selling the other BOX too just for the games.

Re:Microsoft dumb like a fox

[M.C. Hampster]

You're forgetting the license fee they get for each game sold for the XBox also.

Ultimately, XBox gaming (if they make a profitable console next time around) will be much better for Microsoft than PC Gaming ever was.

Re:Microsoft dumb like a fox

[Apreche]

Because they are selling the XboX at a loss first of all. Second of all, without the games there is now very little keeping people on Windows. In fact, Steam is the only reason I still have a windows partition at all. How many nerds do you know who wont switch to Linux because of games? IF the Xbox kills PC gaming entirely all of them will fold.

Create an unprofitable product that reduces market share of profitable product making it less profitable. So not only do they lose money on Xbox, but they make less money with windows than they used to.

No decent RPGs? What about Vampire tM: Bloodlines?

[Attitude Adjuster]

Role-playing games hit rock bottom. Blades of Avernum was just a marginal improvement for Spiderweb Software, and Beyond Divinity was an inferior sequel to Divine Divinity. The only mildly pleasantly surprising release was Kult: Heretic Kingdoms...

While on the whole I agree with his review I'm surprised there is no mention of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines as a decent RPG. Sure, it suffered from those nasty Source-based texture and sound cache thrashing problems that Half-Life 2 also exhibited, but it was fun, well balanced, decent in terms of length and plot, and has more replay capability than most games thanks to the multiple distinct clans.

IMHO its the best RPG since the original KotoR, and it certainly (a) sold well, and (b) it got quite a few highly favorable reviews (along with some negative ones like Gamespot's one). That should at least have earned it a mention in the article, I think...

Demise of strategy games

[fondue]

In 2004 we 'only' had Rome: Total War, W40K: Dawn of War and LOTR: BFME. Worst year for RTS games ever!